Alien

http://www.salon.com/2013/07/31/living_in_america_will_drive_you_insane_literally_partner/

Quiet desperation only obtains for so long.
Turns out that my ongoing rebellion and innate anti-authoritarianism is now the norm.
I was just ahead of the curve, I guess.
It's too bad that we are tacitly, if not overtly, required to throw out all Marxist ideas...because he, and especially his philosophical offspring in the Frankfurt School, had a rather deep understanding of Alienation, Ennui, Angst and Social Disintegration.
I remember the Mythos, peddled by everyone from teachers and preachers to mom and dad and grandparents...that if you took pride in your work, if you strove for excellence, the Ladder would appear before you.
Bootstraps, and all of that.
I remember being convinced that my first love, Philosophy, was not a good choice for a major...that I should instead apply myself to something “sensible”, like “Radio/TV/Film”.
Aside from the bureaucratic tangles and interlocking petty fiefdoms that “Higher Education” had become, even then(circa 1989), there was an all but unspoken truth that the jobs that we were being prepared for were rapidly becoming obsolete, even non-existent.
My experience with Higher Ed. Used to be regarded as an anomaly.
No more.
I've felt for a long time that we are a civilisation in terminal decline...not because of gays and black people and libruls, but because of Exhaustion.
Financialisation of the economy, “Outsourcing”, the “New” Service and “Knowledge” Economy that never quite materialised....
What it all amounts to is a breaking of the Social Contract.
Back when I was still loose in the world, I avoided Corporate Kitchens. I still ended up taking the bait, on occasion...only to have my better judgment confirmed: Soulless, Hopeless, Broken Promises...a Cog in a great machine...stamping out one's Individuality, Creativity, Agency.
Ass Kissing and Tattling as means of advancement.
Privately owned, Mom and Pop Kitchens were a lot better in this regard...until a certain level of success was obtained.
Then, there was that same fear of tall weeds...that same conformism...and that same broken Social Contract.
My last several jobs were exemplars of this.
Forever fighting over one's paycheck, attempting to not get screwed over on the schedule...and watching the ass-kissers and tattlers rise and conquer.
And yet, I was ridiculed and pooh-poohed for being less than enthusiastic about working for assholes and psychopaths, and working with amoral backstabbers, for peanuts.
What's the frelling Point!?
A casual glide through the comments reveals the usual prescriptions of a return to Jesus, and much lowered expectations...as if all of this Alienation and Disillusionment is all in our heads...that eating shit in order to make below a living wage...and having to fight so you don't get screwed out of that...is somehow acceptable.
When I think about these things, I feel almost blessed to be a Cripple.
I don't have to do that anymore.
Instead of belittling me for that opinion...instead of shaming and pissing on all of those 20-30 something folks out there who will never get out from under their college debt...instead of kicking the PHD flipping burgers who just can't get all excited about going to work...instead of, in a nutshell, hating the victims of this phenomenon...perhaps we should be asking why they feel this way, and what can be done about it.
I do not, of course, expect that to happen.
Everything is broken...including our political discourse, and the government that used to be ours, however imperfectly.
This is what Collapse looks like.




See:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School
http://crs.sagepub.com/content/38/4/565.abstract

Ugly

This:


And this:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/christian-protesters-shout-down-muslim-kids-singing-national-anthem-at-texas-rally-islam-is-a-lie/comments/#disqus


Godwin's Law be damned.
When I see shit like this, I think about Germany, 1929.
I think about “Deus Volt!”, which launched the First Crusade.
We are not, and have never been, a “Christian Nation”.
Frothing nutters, projecting their hatred onto their fellow Texans who happen to be embodying some of the best things about Jesus...meek and mild, and turning the other cheek.
Liberals are at a disadvantage, because of our tolerance.
I will defend the frothers' rights to believe in their hateful craziness, and to shout it, up to a point.
Such tolerance will not be reciprocated.
Therein lies the rub.
Karl Popper famously said that we should not tolerate intolerance, because the most hateful forms of intolerance leads inexorably to the end of his cherished Open Society.
There are limits to everything, including each and every one of Our Inalienable Rights.
These so-called- “Christians” have overstepped those bounds.
They should be condemned for such behaviour.

“And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” Matthew,6:5-6
“I like your Christ.
I do not like your Christians...they are so unlike your Christ.”-Gandhi.

Sis.

Heard the news
that you had gone.
Sister to the very first love of my life.
Humble beginning, to humble end.
Hamburger helper,
Dr Pepper,
liquid paper,
and Marlborough Reds.
Porch light always on for wayward souls like me.
A waiting couch, and too early Reba.
Singing in the kitchen.
Life built a hard shell of selfishness
that hid a gooey middle of compassion
worthy of a Buddha.
Taking in strays,
when you could least afford it.
Brash and volatile,
in compensation for overwhelming hardship.
Complex in your simplicity,
your life a constant struggle.
Perhaps your secret pain is finally ended.

American Way

(unearthed during a wholesale file cleaning)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glen-browder/obama-legacy_b_2654287.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glen-browder/sooner-rather-than-later-_b_2839940.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glen-browder/america-is-drifting-mindl_b_2881138.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glen-browder/alternative-scenarios-for_b_2875298.html

FTA,PT4:”I also have a challenge for the Ameican people: Recommit to a new civic course accommodating change in our socity and systemic environment. Essentially, we all should participate, as responsible citizens, in that national dialogue; we also need to embrace change but resist radical alteration of the historic democratic experiment.
My suggested course for both the president and the people also means foregoing partisan advantage, as much as is humanly possible, in favor of practical democratic progress. Too often, for example, conservatives tend to cling stubbornly to cherished but outdated remnants of the past; and, alternatively, liberals tend to ignore valuable lessons of history. Such tendencies are acceptable when neither side prevails completely in our limited, representative system of governance. However, if one or the other assumes sufficient dominance and pursues wayward tendencies, within an extremely distempered environment, the outcome could threaten the substantive ideals and representative procedures of our historic experiment.”


This is a Transformative Time, in American, and World History...and including both of those(American and World)...including that Context is Important.
I am confronted Daily, by erstwhile Liberals(who often do not know it), who unwittingly Parrot Conservative Talking Points:”Obama is a Failure”,”He's Worse than Bush”,etc...and who aver that it's all over...and that We should give up on Democracy, and the Republic...since they're “All the Same”.
A sort of Galt's Gulch mentality, often shorn of it's Randian precursor of Selfishness as the Highest Good.

This Exhaustion is the direct result of two things, both part and parcel of the 35 year Project of what I term the Violent Parasitical Elite(VPE):1. The Wholesale Purchase of the Apparatus of American Governance, and 2. the accompanying Mindfuck, directed at the American People....the overwhelming Barrage of Confusion and Helplessness, the Confusion of Tongues and the Corruption of Language,Cognitive Dissonance, and Revisionist History.
All of this in the context of Racial Pandering, and the encouragement to Blame
our Neighbors and Fellow Prisoners for the Actions of our Ruling Class(whom they have convinced us, do not even exist.(“Classless Society” is part of the Mindfuck.))

While we're beating each other about the face over whether or not, variously, Black People, Brown People, Queers, Women, Non-Xians, etc are Citizens...or even People...the VPE have run off with the Country.
We have been sold into slavery, and our chains are made of Mythology and an Inability to Think.


A Comment:
FT Comments:”Thomas Pain
365 Fans
05:10 PM on 03/30/2013
Glen Browder's heart is in the right place, but call for a renewal America inspired by "the sacred fire of liberty," "a new birth of freedom," and a "dream of equality," is far to vague and amiguous to take us anywhere.

What we need is some very specific proposals.

First, I propose putting a sign at the front of every classroom in every school grades 1-12 that says:

______________________________________________________

I WILL TREAT OTHERS THE WAY I WANT THEM TO TREAT ME
______________________________________________________

Yes, the Golden Rule, restated as an affirmation, for this is the essence of the law, and of love, friendshp, civility, civic cooperation, and civilization.

Second, every student in high school must take a course in Political Philosophy, in which he, or she, will read and discuss "The Rights of Man," "The Age of Reason," "The American Crisis," and "Common Sense," by Thomas Paine (with an "e"), the most influential philospher of the American Revolution; the "Meditations" of Marcus Arelius, Emperor of Rome; "The Quotable Founding Fathers" edited by Buckner F. Melton, and "The True Believer" by Eric Hoffer.

Fourth, also in every classrom, a poster with these words of Abraham Lincoln from his first annual message to Congress on December 3, 1861:

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, Capital. Capital is only the fruit of Labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to Capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." “

Consider, that in Texas, the new Social Studies Curriculum is...instead of being concerned with History, Context, and Truth....is all about Indoctrinating our Youth into believing many of the VPE's Favorite Mythologies...Christian Nation, “Capitalism” as 1. What we've been doing, and 2. the perfect expression of Liberty....the American Experience as Nothing but the Good and Positive...meaning,”My Country Right or Wrong”, and the Uncritical,”We're Number One!”.
What Mr Browder doesn't mention is all of this, as Context.
He is pointing to the Effects of the Mindfuck, without mentioning the Mindfuck.
It's the Ontological Crisis I've been hollering about all this time.




Another Comment:”
Peter Goguen
3 Fans
01:44 PM on 03/30/2013
Despite the widespread belief that the present government is mired in partisan politics, I would assert that quite the opposite is true. We are embroiled in a national dialogue about fairness and justice, with more voices being heard than ever before, and this is a good thing. The issues over taxation,health care, gay marriage, and voting rights are being fervently discussed and argued at multiple levels of varying detail in every political news cycle of the day. As these arguments proceed they will eventually distill some form of consensus, enlighten the electorate and lead to a better America. Patience is all that is needed - good things are happening in America “


This is what I would like to Believe...and there is an argument to be made that there is Great Transformation happening, under the surface...after all, how would we expect to know...when the VPE have a Tentacle thrown across the Media(Hydraulic Despotism)?
When our Information about the World is Filtered through the wholly owned Corporate Media, is it any wonder that We are confused?

I am, of course, way out beyond mere Party and Politics...Review my Ramblings...Left and Right, Conservative and Liberal...none of this means much , any more...
Better: Dominator/Cooperator, or Authoritarian/Egalitarian.
I side with Democrats, because the LEAN towards Cooperator/Egalitarian...not because they EMBODY them. We let the Perfect be the Enemy of the Acceptable Improvement.

With that in mind, Protest Does, indeed Work...despite what my Naysaying Buddies would have us believe, on our way to Throwing in the Towel.
Racists use Euphemism and Code Words, instead of openly declaring their Racism=Progress.
Even Republicans are set to give up on Gay Marriage...shamed into silence for fear of losing elections=Progress.
Occupy, ere it was Cast into Outer Media Darkness...and Tea, ere it was Bought...agreeing on the Fundamental Problem of Super Rich Folks, and the Corps(e) they Hide Behind, essentially Buying Our Governments.=Progress.
There is reason for a little Hope....







Another Comment,Exemplifying the Confusion of Tongues:”Bart DePalma
Bart DePalma
563 Fans
11:27 AM on 03/30/2013
"Can our nation -- a people of growing cultural diversity, with increasingly divergent values, and dissentient governance inclinations, in a constrained systemic environment -- continue to sustain our collective pursuit of freedom, equality, and justice through the traditional framework of limited, representative government?"

Talk about your compound questions! Let's break this down...

The traditional framework of constitutionally limited, representative government is based on the proposal that the purpose of government is to protect the liberties of the people and accomplishes this purpose by limiting the power of government to infringe on liberty. The only proper law ("collective pursuit") is one that prevents the citizenry from harming one another.

This permits divergent cultures to live with one another peacefully.

The fundamental challenge to the existence of constitutionally limited, representative government is progressivism and socialism - the "dissentient governance inclinations" referred to in the question.

Progressivism and socialism are based upon the proposition of unlimited government power exercised by an unelected bureaucracy of "experts" directing the economy and society. This is the anti-thesis of and cannot coexist with constitutionally limited, representative government.

Under our current progressive and socialist government, the bureaucracy and courts rather than our elected Congress enact the vast majority of law.

Our caesarist President quite openly declines to enforce laws of which he disapproves and rules by executive order or bureaucratic decree where ever he can. How Professor Browder can even conceive of Mr. Obama as a transformative president advancing democracy is a complete mystery to me.”


Here is the Exemplar of the Confusion of Tongues....
To me, it is Obvious...the code Words,”Progressive”, allied with “Socialist”...mixed with the others,”Constitutionally Limited,Representative Government”....
Again, I am confronted Every Day, with such rhetoric...mostly by erstwhile Liberals...who do not Know that they are Liberals(after all, don't they eat babies?)
Who cannot Define Terms, save from Inside the Mindfuck....”Socialism/Progressivism/Liberalism”= Soviet Russia.(or even Nazi Germany!!)...always neglected in such statements is the Effects, even the Reality, of Corporate Domination of every area of Life.
I stand firmly with Mr Browder...We, the People, must Engage in Dialog....except that no one seems to recall what “Dialog” is.
In order to begin a Dialog, “Both Sides”(but especially what is known as “the Right”!) must accept the other as American, Too.
Our Diversity is often the root of our ineffectiveness.
Fear of the Other is fomented....by those who would have us fighting our Neighbor, rather than attacking the actual Enemies of Freedom.
We, the People, must overcome this Distraction...this Manufactured Division...if We are to ever even begin to, as we heard so often from TEA,”Take Our Country Back”..

Again, We have been riding the car, driven by maniacs, bumping along in the Right Hand Ditch...any correctional swerve to the left is regarded as going all the way, into the Left Hand Ditch...the Perfectly Serviceable Road remains Empty.

On Hope

“The world gets better. It also gets worse. The time it will take you to address this is exactly equal to your lifetime, and if you're lucky you don't know how long that is. The future is dark. Like night. There are probabilities and likelihoods, but there are no guarantees. “-Rebecca Solnit(1)

A usual day begins around here, with me: up at some silly hour, well before dawn. I make coffee, and...since I do not wish to impose my too-early-ness upon anyone...light the candle beside my bed.
I listen to the coffee machine sputter and spit and smoke cigarettes and look at the little flame...Tuvok the Vulcan would say,”the flame, disciplined”...and I think of Gandalf:”I am the servant of the Secret Fire...” and of Cormac McCarthy,”Carry the Fire...”...
and I reflect on the injustice and craziness and hatred and despair that seems so all encompassing, at times...like the darkness of my house, in those lonely hours before dawn....
But I have my Candle.
“This little light of mine...”
...all these long years of reflection and of learning and of speaking out...and where are we?
What's the point of it all?
I look out the window, at the quiet street, in this tiny quiet town, and feel the feelings of those who look out on other streets in other towns and cities and villages and megalopolises...streets not so quiet...
Not so peaceful.
It's hard to be optimistic...optimism has an inverse relationship to what one knows about the world.
But we are, each of us, a part of that world, and each have a small part in it's ongoing Creation.
...and that realisation is what keeps me going.
Small stones dislodge more small stones, which in their turn dislodge marginally larger stones...ripples expand outwards, and have an effect in the waterlogged grasses and reeds at the edges of the pond. The frogs therein know that something is afoot.
The edges are where all of the important stuff happens...as in the Protohominids at the edges of the shrinking Pleistocene forest, looking out at the growing Savannah...and making the decision to leave the shade....
That made all of the difference, it turns out.


"History written by Power taught us that we had lost.... We did not believe what Power taught us. We skipped class when they taught conformity and idiocy. We failed modernity. We are united by the imagination, by creativity, by tomorrow. In the past we not only met defeat but also found a desire for justice and the dream of being better. We left skepticism hanging from the hook of big capital and discovered that we could believe, that it was worth believing, that we should believe -- in ourselves. Health to you, and don't forget that flowers, like hope, are harvested." -Zapatista Subcommandante Marcos(1)

Hope, according to the Greeks, was all that was left in Pandora's Jar, when the lid was, almost too late, replaced.
They counted this as a very good thing.
I look around, and at first(and second and third) glance, see little reason for Hope.
I expect the worst...a Global Dark Age, unprecedented in it's scope and depth.
Holocene giving way to Anthropocene, the Age of Energy Abundance giving way to Scarcity on an almost unimaginable scale....Terror, writ large...Fear and Un-Understanding...Ignorance Ascendant.
In America, a Hobbesian Civil War of all against all, with our unknown Ruling Class, whom we still cannot bring ourselves to acknowledge, sitting in their Enclaves, waiting to emerge and “save” us all from ourselves, once the violence and rage has exhausted itself.
But then I look at my little fire, disciplined...glowing feebly in the darkness of my pre-dawn house...
And I think of Frodo Baggins, and of Luke Skywalker and Duncan Idaho and Neo and all of the other unlikely Heroes in our modern Mythos, and their unlikely victories against the Dark that forever lurks... waiting...
What such unlikely Heroes have in common, besides their universal initial unwillingness, is the first step onto the Path.
The Courage to take that step...not because of a lack of Fear, but in spite of it.
That first step, that small stone, that tiny flame in the dark...that is what all of the great changes that have gone before us were made of.
So, go on...Create your Universe...do your small part...Carry the Fire.
It's all we've ever had, and it is all that is, ultimately, needed.
The Essence of Magic is in learning to Focus one's Intention....Maximus the Gladiator/General says, “what we do here, today, echoes in Eternity...”
Our Intentions...Our Will...Our Compassion and Rage and Hope...Ripple outward.
That is how the World is remade.




(1)http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/677/rebecca_solnit_acts_of_hope
(2)http://www.alternet.org/economy/so-many-people-are-badly-traumatized-life-america-its-time-we-admit-it?paging=off¤t_page=1#bookmark

meandering

The courage to define oneself.
I may have been drunk at the river, but I came out of there with more trash than I brought.
Treelover? Yer damn skippy!
Lungs of the world. That's what a true conservative believes.
For Gay Rights? Yup, and proud to say.Equal Rights means Equal Rights.
You want to deny Gay People their Equal Rights because a few narrow minded folks might get upset?
I'm upset that a few narrowminded folks get to decide who is worthy of Equal Rights.
Everybody's Worthy of Equal Rights...which includes the Bigot's Right to an opinion.
That's conservative, too.
Pro-Dope?
Absolutely!
How is it conservative to let the government decide what choice of inebriant/relaxant is best for me? On my own property?
And while bothering no one?
Wanna restrict the vote? Make it hard to vote?
That ain't conservative, either.
Before you make such radical changes, you need a lot better evidence.
It's radical(in a bad way) to take people's Right to Vote.
Living Wage? Yes, for sure!
Folks who make more than enough to live on are good for business.
Folks who don't make enough to live on are Bad for business.
Pay folks more than Poverty Wages, and watch business grow.
Henry Ford knew this, why don't we?
If you don't like “welfare”, hire somebody at a Living Wage.
Wanna call yourself a “Job Creator”?
Prove it.
I don't want to be Rich...I want Enough.
Greed is not good...in fact, it's bad.
A Greedy person is not a role model. The one who has enough to share is to be emulated.
Courage means defending Freedom, even when we're scared.
I'll not remove my shoes...or my hat.
I am not afraid of terrorists...or of the Government.
I'm afraid of Ignorance.
The Things that I do not Know are an opportunity, not something to be feared.
Dont like me fishing naked? It's a big river...go further up stream.
Don't like my cigarette smoke? I do not care for your car exhaust, or your perfume.
I'd like to have the Freedom to take the train.

On the Truth, Rather Than the Lie

(What is a “Liberal”?)


All you need do
is ask....

We want to take the Best of what is Humankind,
and build a Civilisation out of it.
It is not, however, in Our Nature to Presume to Decide what is “Best”, and to then Unilaterally Universalise it. There can be no Liberal Dictators...
That is Anathema;
Dictatorship goes Against Our Nature.

Our Nature, instead, requires Discussion and Thought,
and Compromise.
….and, ultimately, Consensus.
Must We always make Decisions based on the purview of only one Facet of a Multifaceted Humanity?
Is there to be no Contact between the Mind, the Heart and the Soul?
Forever the Conflict between Our Intellect, Emotions and that which is Transcendent within Us?
We Believe and Intuit and Reason that All of Humanity has the Right to a hand in the Defining and Constructing of this thing called Humanity.
Civilisation...Society... Is, and Must be, a Joint, Cooperative, Interdisciplinary Project.
We believe in the Polis, in Democracy, in the Res Publica.(the “Thing of the People”)
Broad and Deep and Rich and Fecund.
We Accept and Acclaim a Thriving and often Riotous Humanity,
Clamoring and Whistling and Singing out,
Talking and Arguing, Agreeing and Disagreeing,
But in Absolute Agreement about only One Thing:
Our Collective and Individual and Inalienable Right to Exist.
All of Us.
Every One.
And We want to Agree on the De Minimis...the Bare Minimum of what that Means...
This Right to Exist...which means that We want to Talk about it.
We propose the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a Fine Place to begin this Discussion.
Such Documents are Designed to be Added to...never Subtracted from.
We believe that there is not one Humanity, but Billions.
We believe that Each of those billions have the Same Rights.
Which necessarily includes the Right to be a part of the never ending Discussion as to just what those Rights Are and Mean.
We believe that these De Minimis Rights are subject only to the Consensus of Humankind, insofar as they be added to....never diminished.
We believe in Erring on the side of Caution...constantly bearing in Mind Our propensity to Err otherwise.
And Constantly Remembering that We are not Infallible.
That We are not Perfect.
That Perfect is a Process, never Fulfilled...constantly Under Construction.
We believe that “My Right, my Sphere of Autonomy”, ends at that Place where it Intersects with “Your Right, your Sphere of Autonomy.”...and that in Between the two, Exists a Shared Humanity.
First Use of Force is the Second Highest Crime.(the First being Denying Anyone the Right to Exist.)
Force being Defined as Coercion, in spite of or contrary to, Our Common, but Individual, Bubbles of Autonomy, that We Each carry around with Ourselves...
And in spite of or contrary to, the Needs and Wants that We All Share.
Let Us, Together, Define those Needs and Wants.
Let Us have Compassion.
Let Us Work Together.
Let Us, through Dialog,through Trialog, Quadrilog, and so forth... See the world through Each Others' Eyes.
Let Us at last take into Mind Our Common Humanity.
And Let Us have the Courage to Become what We-- All of Us,Together—are...One and Alone and Many and Together...a Myriad, Sharing a Common Denominator…
Let Us make the Defining Characteristic of “HUMAN” be “Robust in Our Diversity.

“All of Us, Together and Alone.”



Let Us Dare
To Construct a World that encompasses Us All...that has Room for Us All...
a Right for Us All...
All the World is a Cousin to Me;
If not a Brother, or a Sister.
We are each, Each Others' Ancestors.
Let Us endeavor to Behave as if We were All Related to one another.
One Big Human Family.
May We...Can We...at least Agree on that?
All of Us?
Every One?

….and That,
Is what it means to be “a Liberal”.

Emergence

(crawling out the hole in the top)

Awright...so it wasn't exactly “warm”, today...
but the sun was out, and it got into the high 50's,
with North West winds at 5-10 mph.
I went out to the monastery and piddled around,
doing this and that.
I think the ladder is what did me in, finally.
It is so incredibly easy to damage myself.
Out of the 5 hours I spent out there, perhaps half that time was spent puttering—the rest, just sitting there, reading.
Lots of little things knocked off my rather extensive mental list...jammed the Ravi Shankar, and got into what for me is a groove: “work” for 20 minutes, sit down for 15.
Cripplehood teaches one Patience.
If I sit down for any longer, I'll start to seize up...like the Tin Man...and become furniture; so I must goad myself to continue.
Eventually...maybe 6 hours of this, maybe three(depending on weather and other factors), and I'll notice the Pain leaking past the drugs.
If I'm really in to what I'm doing, I sometimes don't notice the first stabs.
But it always ends with me staggering about, packing up the laptop and my lunch dishes, and crawling on home.
That was at around 3 pm.
Limped through the monastery Laundry Cycle and rekindled the fire, and I've been right fucking here, ever since.
I'm tempted to attempt a hot hot bath, but I know from experience that it will(counter-intuitively) make me feel worse, when all's said and done.
It'll feel great for as long as I'm submerged...but when I get out, and venture into this impossible to heat little house, the shivering will bring agony.
I'm clockwatching...another hour and a half til I can take another norco.
That indicates what is called “pseudoaddiction”...which is not addiction, at all, but rather a product of undermedication. Doctors often mistake it for the real thing...patient always complaining that it ain't enough.
This, in it's turn, is a product of our idiotic war on drugs..hypersuspicion and simplistic assumptions...all of which leads to a lack of trust.
(Yay, Amurca!)
I am lucky in this regard:
I have a good, 15 year long relationship with my Doctor.
Problem is that Texas requires paper prescriptions...and only a month's worth at a time.
So manana, I make the trek to Fredericksburg...70 miles, round trip.
That's gonna hurt, too.
At least the gloom has past, and the frigidity.
.................
...all of the foregoing with Rand Paul nattering in the background:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/14/1357706/-VIDEO-Rand-Paul-Over-half-the-people-receiving-disability-benefits-are-gaming-the-system?detail=email#

Those fuckers just won't quit!!
Forward!! Into Dark Age!!
Neofeudalism is the American Way!!
….and folks out here, and elsewhere, swallow it whole...never
realising that they are targets, as well.

Oubliette

Now, after the bells and tinsel are finally packed away again,
after the festivities and enforced joyousness have mercifully ended,
after the peeping hunters have gone back to their east Texas holes,
We are settled in for the long frigid dark,of the first two months of the New Year;
The last, more bitter half of Winter.
The Skunk has returned to under our house...I have no idea how she gets under there...
Seems like a new hole, every year.
Same with the Porcupine that prefers Wintering on the floor under the bath-tub..
One can tell by the sound the quills make as she shuffles around...scraping the iron underside of the tub.
By February, there will be Babies...”Kits”,perhaps?
Mewling and scratching.
TV Football is almost at an end(rejoice!)...but the local sporting endeavors are just getting up to speed...
I am largely exempt, due to cripplehood, and being unable to tolerate the benches
and bleachers, to say nothing of the crowds.
It is for that same reason that I only darken the theater's door for Star Wars and Tolkien...
I am Patient.
I can wait for the DVD.
The sports means that I am left alone
a lot.
More than usual.
I have driven away many acquaintances...by my occasional drunkenness,
or by my perennial erudite obscurity.
Perhaps both—Dionysius and Apollo are Strangers, here.
The handful of people I would actually prefer to hang around with are all...
to a man...
Womyn.
...and married to Neandethals.(what's that all about?)
Platonic, Pseudoplatonic, relationships with crazy Hippies are verboten.
And just forget about the possibility of fuck-buddies,lol.

It's too cold out side...and my Monastery takes hours to warm up...
and I hurt too much, this time of year, anyway.
So I am terminally Bored.

Three days more of frozen darkness, and then a warm spell...
Will I explode inebriated into the hills?
Will I work too much, too soon, and spend the remaining days of this coming unseasonable warmth
curled up in agony?
Habit indicates :
Both.

On Terrorism(French Edition)

What has stricken me, from the evening of 9-11-2001, to this day, is the tacit prohibition on considering the perspectives of the perpetrators.
We are expected to only consider it from our own( somewhat elitist and exclusive) perspective: they “hate us for our freedoms”, even as those Freedoms are whittled away out of Fear of Terrorism(“fear-ism”).
Their violence is always presented as Irrational, Barbaric, and Unwarranted.
Conversely, we are encouraged to think of our own, retaliatory Violence as Good and Just...and always perfectly Rational.
We are not to question the Official Story.
We are never to look into the perceptions and motivations of those Others.
I found out about this Prohibition the hard way.
That afternoon and evening...and for the following weeks...I, as is my habit, speculated aloud about possible alternative explanations and chains of Causation.
“Look at the History,” I said....
“Look at the West's meddling in the entire Arab World, for centuries...”
One can think of all of this as a considered response to Our own aggression and
avarice and double-dealing with the inhabitants of those regions.
From Churchill throwing darts at the map, to Sykes-Picot, to the Crusades, to the imposition and then propping up of various dictators and strongmen...from the House of Saud to Saddam to the Shah to Mubarak.
Our employees have waged a long campaign of violent, often Imperial, meddling....and the results, for the People on the ground in those places, have been economic and social stagnation.
From that perspective, from the perspective of those who have grown up in such chaotic environs---and confronted by wealthy Imperial strength—is it any wonder that those folks would eventually strike back at what they perceive as their Oppressors?
But we are all but forbidden from such contemplation.
To even consider that the Terrists may have a Grievance...and a legitimate one, at that...is considered as bordering on Treason.
This manipulated narrowing of Thought means that the same People, and “People”(the Paper Kind) ,who are behind the Oppression and Aggression against the entire Third World.--including the Arab/Muslim parts-- can also direct their Oppression and Aggression inwards...corralling and delimiting the Thoughtscapes of their own People, so as to curtail any opposition...and any formation of alternatives to their Paradigm.
TINA, again.
Hydraulic Despotism, applied to the Psycho-Social milieu.
It is instructive, that the first words to come from the public face of the various “intelligence” agencies after the bloodletting in France, are all about the “Need” to give up more of our Freedoms in service of “Fighting the Terrorists”.
Our Privacy, Our Freedom of Thought and Communication, are to be Sacrificed on the altar of FEAR.
That this end so closely coincides with the purported agenda of the Terrists, themselves, is yet another thing from which we are to avert our eyes.
That We allow our own governments to, essentially, accomplish what those governments tell us, in all sincerity, are the “Goals” of the Terrists, is the most hellish of ironies.

to Critter Mike, on shameless duplicity and general evil-doing.

Man,
you guys don't waste any time, at all.
I just read this:(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-zombeck/gop-begins-assault-on-eld_b_6436640.html)....and dug into many other sources.
I had thought that you lot couldn't surprise me any more, with your duplicitous mendacity, your cruel indifference and even hostility to those less fortunate.
Congratulations! You and your Ilk in the Goptea have lowered the bar, yet again.
Since the last election...which was not a "landslide" on your part(I can count, and do sums)...I had considered retiring from my letter-writing and from my attempts to call attention to you and your buddies' assholery.
Instead, I find myself with even more resolve.
I'm watching.
My word processor is warmed up.
My address book is updated.
Y'all just keep up the attacks on the poor, the weak and the aged.
At some point, Rushbo and Faux will no longer work for you to keep your base so blind to the effects of your rabidly hypocritical hatred of the American People (the flesh and blood kind...not the paper variety).
Vincit Omnia Veritas.
...and I will do my best to help the Truth get out.

thanks for the kindling.
Josef.
Liberal.

Thoughts and meditations while burrowed in for the new years' Canadian invasion.

I fucking hate winter.

This year, Thanksgiving brought my extended family a flu outbreak...complete with putting my mother(72) in an ambulance twice(the first time, I thought she was kicking the bucket), and me spending a lot of time camped out (uncomfortably)in her guest bedroom, in order to nurse and watch her.
Then the cold began....and the 24th anniversary of my life changing wreck, and my usual over-sensitivity to jingle bells and cinnamon smells and mannerless hunters stopping on my dirt road to ogle at the hippie in clown pants, carrying a hammer on his own property(if I did the same in their deep east texas cowboy-chic suburban warren, they'd surely call the law, if not shoot me)...and it's colder than a Teabilly pericardial sac, and as wet and nasty and all I wanna do is run off to Belize or somewhere and lay naked in the sun(which I am certain still exists, despite appearances).
The flu, though...that set things off on a deleterious track.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/01/when-you-get-the-flu-this-winter-you-can-blame-anti-vaxxers.html

It seems that, once again, the Faux Newt surreality has leaked into the world the rest of us inhabit...otherwise reasonable folks don't “believe” in the science around vaccines.
Those cracks in the Right Wingers' reality bubble are at the root of a whole lot of things that seem intractable.
To whit:

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/29/no_civilization_would_tolerate_what_america_has_done_partner/

Maybe this guy reads me...or maybe I'm somehow tapped into the Noosphere...but I've been hollering about all of that for years: our inability and unwillingness to look Reality in the face-- instead preferring to believe real hard in our various Mythos and ever so comfortable in our numerous unexamined Assumptions, Frames and Memes.
Ah...the Warm Herd....

More tea colored crap oozes from the cracks:
http://www.salon.com/2015/01/01/beyond_the_foreign_policy_lies_our_compliant_media_and_the_truth_about_american_exceptionalism/#comments

Again...Where's everybody been?
Lol.
Reagan's Amurca has been an unamerican shithole for a long time.
(yes, it goes back at least to Truman, who was “a democrat”...sigh)...and the further down that fork in the road we go, the more the ghosts of the John Birch Society infect the mind of America.
I've made the attempt at working on the part of the Mighty Tome, for months, about the all but unacknowledged but widespread anti-Hippie discrimination, hostility, and outright Eliminationism...and what that says about Us, and how we've been bamboozled, lo these past 40 years, but I have been so fucking depressed. The Ferguson, et alia hatefest has not relented(comments sections, throughout the web).
The Torture Report made little difference.
The Republican Party has been shameless in their Triumphalism(and they still appear to be ignorant assholes)...and the Democratic Party is still eyeless and ball-free.
I've been on Deep Space 9 and Battlestar Galactica for 2 months as a result.

These three excellent articles are my return to paying attention.
I'm glad that I ain't the only one who has looked at the roots of things.
It sure feels that way, sometimes.